Surfers who experienced the first
screening of Bruce Brown’s The Endless Summer, in August of
1964, left the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium knowing for an absolute
fact that they had just seen the best surf film to date.
What they didn’t know is that they’d
just seen the best surf film that would ever be made.
Brown was only 27 when The Endless
Summer premiered, but he was already a seasoned surf movie maker.
He’d released Slippery When Wet in 1958, Surf Crazy
in ’59, Barefoot Adventure in ’61, and Surfing Hollow
Days in ’62. Finally, in the summer of 1963, while conjuring up
The Endless Summer, he screened a compilation of his first
four films called Waterlogged. In his early work, you can see
the foundation being poured for The Endless Summer. The humor,
the confidence, the plethora of great surfing, and the holistic feel
to the music and narration were all beginning to bubble over. (Two of
his neophyte offerings, Slippery When Wet and Barefoot
Adventure, even featured original scores by the accomplished
jazzman Bud Shank. Not a bad start for a surf film maker in his early
20’s.)
Maybe it isn’t so strange that Bruce
Brown found his voice making surf films. The name “Brown” seemed
to be a prerequisite for the job. The originator of the home-brew
16mm surf movie, Bud Browne (sic), began showing his delightful tomes
along the California coast in 1953, and another Brown, Don, produced
three surfing features in those early days, along with filming that
bitchin’, snarling left that appeared every week on Hawaii
Five-O. None of the Brown(e)s are related, and yet they were
concurrently working in an era when there were less than a dozen
active surf film makers in the entire world. Go figure.
The surf movie makers of the 60’s
were “indie” decades before the term even existed. These guys
were so independent, they didn't even bother to work for themselves
half the time. They cobbled together used, bottom-end 16mm film gear
with a desire to earn a living near the water. Then they made it all
work with as little movie-making expertise as possible. They shot
miles of film during the wave rich winter months (the romantic
wedding of “surfing and summer” being largely contrived), slapped
the footage together in the spring, then toured coastal areas that
summer. They screened at women’s centers, high school auditoriums,
and tiny local theaters. Inland surfers had to rent the films they
wanted to see via mail, then project them for surf clubs and frat
houses at a buck-a-head to cover their expenses.
During this embryonic period, neither
the filmmakers or the audience were sophisticated enough to tell the
lies the other wanted to hear. Producers trusted their gut when it
came to content, and the audience didn't respond to a poor offering
with acrimonious coffeehouse critiques later that evening. They
looked for the guy in the parking lot when the show was over. The
closest thing to the touring 16mm surf films of the 60’s, probably,
would be the rock and roll shows of the 50’s, when the likes of
Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, and Eddie Cochran would drive from town
to town with their gear stashed in the trunk, putting on shows in
rental halls.
The era of straight-from-the-hip,
straight-from-the-heart, surf film making (which lasted roughly from
1958 through 1976) was often characterized by shady financing (you
can guess the details), short-sighted archival sensibilities, and, on occasion, riotous screenings in venues filled with three
thousand surfers. (In this era of pint-sized, multi-plexes, the
concept of three thousand people sitting in one theater is awesome.
The concept of three thousand surfers stuffed into one theater
is flat-out terrifying.)
As works of art, these low budget
productions were rarely compelling enough to transcend eras, let
alone reach beyond the beach culture. But The Endless Summer
has steadfastly refused to fold its tent. Five decades years after
its initial released, it’s almost eerie how it can still speak to
us. Through 10 U.S. presidencies, the hippie movement,
women’s lib, gay lib, man on the moon, the Vietnam war, the pill,
Kent State, Watergate, Monicagate, vinyl, eight track,
quad, digital, disco, leisure suits, herpes, aids, another round of disco,
phone sex, computer sex, Martin Luther King, Rodney King, Desert
Storm, and the internet, there isn’t a
non-surfer with a pulse who isn’t itching to give surfin' a try
before the closing credits roll.
Bruce Brown’s simple, engaging
narration in The Endless Summer is the key to the film’s
appeal, and the creative process behind his story-telling hearkens
back to era of the Marx Brothers, when early comedians
performed their material before live audiences for months before
committing it to film. When The Endless Summer was initially
shown in high school auditoriums, there was no sound on the
projection print. Like most surf film makers of the day, Brown sat on
the stage just off screen and DJ’d the music track via a reel to
reel tape recorder while providing the live narration. It was a
one-man band affair, and it took real talent to mingle all the volume
levels while talking story. For months, Brown exhibited The
Endless Summer “live” before he committed his spiel to the
version that’s now burned into our psyches. He knew exactly what
gags and sentiment and exposition worked, because he’d performed it
in front of the toughest audience there was…surfers. (The nicest
thing you can say about the denizens who attended surf movies back
then is that they arrived without automatic weapons.)
By 1966, the original 16mm version had
been shown to death along the coastlines of the surfing world, and
Brown was confident enough to seek out a distributor who would
exhibit it theaters across the country. He couldn’t drum up any
takers based on his early success, so he screened his film (still
flickering away in 16mm) in Wichita, Kansas…in the dead of winter.
This was as an acid test aimed at proving his point. The film was a
smash, breaking the theater’s all-time attendance record, but there
were still no takers in Hollywood. So, on spec, he blew it up to
35mm, rented a movie house in Manhattan Beach, California, and filled
the joint every day for an entire year. Finally, the power of The
Endless Summer to draw large audiences was undeniable, and a
distributor was signed. The film went on to gross a reported 30
million dollars during its worldwide theatrical run.
The Endless Summer elucidated
the true joys of surfing to a generation of Americans who were
otherwise stuck with two conflicting, and largely fictional,
images…the candy-assed Beach Boys/Frankie and Annette portrayal, or the surfer-as-waterborne-hoodlum portrayal. The film’s popularity was
bitter-sweet for surfers, because the entire country had finally
embraced our sport for all the right reasons. But dammit, it was
ours first!
Brown’s cinematic formula is
pedestrian, and the film is rife with sloppy photography, sluggish
pacing, lame gags, and a sometimes embarrassing social perspective.
It doesn’t even scratch the surface of who stars Mike Hynson and
Robert August are, or where they’re going with their lives. They
aren’t even characterized as exceptional surfers, which they were.
As far as we know, they’re just two guys who, when they aren’t
striking out with chicks, are looking for a few waves to ride. The
rarest of all feelings is generated between the film’s principles
and the audience…the feeling of being equal.
The Endless Summer was so
successful in its heyday, it actually killed what little innocence
was left in the 16mm surf movie genre. It was impossible for surf
film makers not to play to the hope that their homage might
also be picked up by the big boys in Hollywood, and elevate them into
an early, well-heeled retirement. What’s astonishing is the no one
else has even come close to duplicating it with any real success…and
they’ve been trying for 5 decades! (Even Brown’s slick,
beautifully photographed 1994 sequel, The Endless Summer II,
hit the target but missed the bull’s eye.) The idea of two guys
traveling the world to find something (themselves, great waves, whatever) combined with good surfing footage, a
few sight gags, some funny narration, and a catchy musical score has
surfaced time and time again, but it’s never the same when seen
through the eyes of anyone but Mr. Bruce Brown.
For non-surfers who stumble across the film, there’s always a sense of revelation. “Is that what surfing’s like?” they ask, with a quizzical smile.
For non-surfers who stumble across the film, there’s always a sense of revelation. “Is that what surfing’s like?” they ask, with a quizzical smile.
Yup.
For surfers, it captured the mythology
of our sport so thoroughly, it actually became a part of that
mythology. When surfers of any age, and from any country, speak of
great surf movies, “The Endless Summer” rolls off their
tongue within 15 seconds. To this day, it validates why they surf.
Someone finally articulated something that surfers are either unwilling or
unable to voice ourselves. It almost functions like an old, scratchy
Louie Armstrong 78. Thank God we have it, because how else could we
explain real jazz?
While today’s loud, glossy, corporate-sponsored surf videos give us a sense of the new, The Endless Summer gives us a sense of renewal. In Brown’s scheme of things, regardless of your age, when you surf you're young. Even in its fifth decade, it remains the unbeaten, untied, undisputed heavyweight champion of the surf movie world.
Paul Gross
